Nine days after Hungarian voters ended 16 years of unbroken rule by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s nationalist government, the European Union’s highest judicial body delivered a landmark ruling that the Orbán administration’s 2021 anti-LGBTQ laws violate core European Union regulations and founding values of equality and minority protection.
Orbán’s Fidesz party, which held a two-thirds parliamentary supermajority for most of its time in power, first enacted the original law in 2021, framing the ban on so-called “promotion of homosexuality and gender transition” to minors as a necessary child protection measure. Last year, the outgoing government passed a follow-up amendment that expanded restrictions to ban all public events hosted by LGBTQ community groups, including Budapest’s long-running annual Pride march. Despite the official ban, organizers moved forward with the 2025 march, leading Hungarian prosecutors to file criminal charges against opposition-aligned Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony.
In its ruling, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found that the law violated EU regulations on multiple fronts, and made an unprecedented determination that the legislation breached the core founding values outlined in Article 2 of the EU Treaty. The court concluded that the law interferes with fundamental EU rights including non-discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation, respect for private and family life, and freedom of expression and information. Beyond procedural violations, the ruling noted that the law deliberately stigmatized and marginalized transgender and non-heterosexual Hungarians, drawing an unfair and harmful parallel between LGBTQ identity and pedophilia. The court stressed that the law ran “contrary to the very identity of the Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails.”
Legal experts described the ruling as a historic turning point for minority rights across the bloc. John Morijn, a professor of law and international relations politics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, noted that the decision carries symbolic weight that extends far beyond Hungary’s borders, establishing that the fundamental rights of marginalized social groups are not open to political negotiation. “You cannot equate what is totally natural – that 10% of the population loves the same sex – with egregious crime,” Morijn told the BBC, adding that the ruling sets a new precedent for holding EU member states accountable for violating both the letter and spirit of EU law, particularly the core values of pluralism, equality, and rule of law enshrined in Article 2. This precedent, Morijn explained, opens the door for the European Commission to take similar legal action against other member states that roll back minority rights.
The ruling places immediate pressure on Hungary’s new governing majority, led by Péter Magyar’s Tisza Party, which defeated Fidesz in the April 12 general election. While Magyar has not released a detailed public position on the specific anti-LGBTQ laws, his election victory speech laid out a vision for a Hungary “where no-one is stigmatised for thinking differently than the majority, or loving differently than the majority.” Magyar has run on a strongly pro-European platform, promising to repair Hungary’s strained relations with Brussels, reverse Orbán’s authoritarian policies, and unlock more than €10 billion in blocked EU cohesion funding that was frozen over concerns about rule of law backsliding under the previous government. With Tisza holding a two-thirds supermajority of 141 seats in the 199-seat National Assembly, the new government has the parliamentary power to repeal the contested legislation immediately.
European Commission officials have confirmed that repealing the anti-LGBTQ law will be a top priority in discussions with the new Hungarian administration. “It’s up to the… Hungarian government to abide by the ruling and once that is done the issue is solved,” said commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho.
LGBTQ rights advocates have called for swift action from both Magyar’s government and the European Commission. Katja Štefanec Gärtner, policy advisor at pan-European LGBTQ rights group Ilga-Europe, argued that the landmark ECJ ruling removes any justification for delaying repeal. “If Péter Magyar truly aims to be pro-EU, he must place this at the top of his agenda for his first 100 days in office,” Štefanec Gärtner said.